From the start of the story there is a feel of mystery due to the fact that the characters don’t introduce there selves. The story starts in the morning when the sun is just about popping from the sky. This is kind of a odd time to set a ghost story at because you normally associate ghosts with night time, when they come out to play
The setting is very good for this story because it brings up lots of ideas in your head about what is going to happen with the railway later on in the story; it also has a big significant to hell and devilish things . The narrator fist sees the signalman when he’s on top of the cutting “down in the deep trench” which suggests that there’s something dark and mysterious about the railway.
The narrator tells us that the signalman had been a student of “natural philosophy” and had attended lectures. But this is odd and mysterious because if he was well educated why would he be stuck with the job as a signalman. However Dickens tells us that the signalman “he had run wild’ misused his opportunities, gone down and never risen again” so that explains why he is doing the job at all. One of Dickens’s ideas is to show the anxiety that comes from being controlled by something that isn’t human – which was what happened once industrialisation became common.
In this extract it tell us how dedicated the signalman is to his job this shows that he is very reliable, and we see this because the narrator calls him vigilant and exact.
Another well known story is “The Red Room” which was written by H.G.Wells.the story is about a room in which a young duke died in, the young duke was killed while trying to scare his wife but ends up being scared to dead and falling down the stairs,(what goes around comes around). The young duke intrigued several people to come to Loraine castle including the narrator who was also an intrigued exploring who wanted to find out about the mystery of Loraine castle, this story is like the signalman because the narrator is kept anonymous through out the whole story this adds a feel of mystery and suspense to the story and makes you more involved. The difference between the two narrators is that in ‘The Signal Man’ the narrator never has any encounters with any super natural goings on unlike in ‘The Red Room’ the narrator has many encounters which in the end drives him to leave Loraine Castle. The focus in ‘The Red Room’ is on the narrator and the things that go on in the room. Such as ghostly shadows and strange noise and the change in temperature in the room. Although throughout the story you don’t hear or read about any apparitions appearing but you still get that ghostly feeling from what happens in the story and how it is all explained.
A big difference between ‘The Red Room’ and ‘The Signal Man’ is that ‘The Red Room’ is set inside which has a claustrophobic feel unlike ‘The Signal Man’ which is set outside which you don’t normally associate with ghostly goings on especially being on a rail way.
